I’m sorry I don’t have time for a proper post, but I just had to share this little Monday morning gem…
Sarah Palin has no shame. I mean, can you imagine a more ironic politician accusing someone of being in bed with the oil companies? Seriously?
Sarah, when your chant from the 2008 election is still remembered by everyone in the country, and makes direct reference to more oil drilling, perhaps you should keep your mouth shut when it comes to accusing others. Do you expect us to believe that, under your “guidance” we wouldn’t have an accident like this every week?
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Right-wing darling Sarah Palin accused US President Barack Obama on Sunday of being lax in his response to the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster and suggested this was because he is too close to Big Oil.
Sarah Palin, the person who famously lied about “Death Panels” in Health Care reform, is now complaining that Barack Obama, and the “lame stream media,” are lying about the new Arizona immigration law being racist.
“There is no ability or opportunity in there for the racial profiling,” she said. “Shame on the lame stream media again for turning this into something that it is not.”
Palin then blamed the president for allowing the “myth” that the law allows racial profiling to take hold.
“It’s shameful, too, that the Obama administration has allowed…this to become more of a racial issue by perpetuating this myth that racial profiling is a part of this law,” she said.
She has a point, I’m afraid. The lame stream media and the Democrats have let this “racist myth” get out of hand. One of Obama’s puppets, a Michael Gerson, even wrote that
the law [is] “dreadful” on Wednesday in his piece for the Post. “This law creates a suspect class, based in part on ethnicity, considered guilty until they prove themselves innocent,” Gerson wrote. “It makes it harder for illegal immigrants to live without scrutiny — but it also makes it harder for some American citizens to live without suspicion and humiliation.”*
Gerson even made a veiled reference to totalitarian regimes, a charge Palin has also criticized. Gerson wrote
“Americans are not accustomed to the command ‘Your papers, please,’ however politely delivered,” he continued. “The distinctly American response to such a request would be ‘Go to hell,’ and then ‘See you in court.’”
Oh wait. I’ve just received word… Gerson was a speechwriter for President Bush. My bad.
Other critics of this bill include notable liberals such as Karl Rove, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, and Joe Scarborough.
Wait, none of them are liberal either? They are all members of the GOP? Some of them rather conservative? Whoops.
In all seriousness, why does anyone give Sarah Palin any credence whatsoever? If she really thinks this is a good bill and that people are making false charges, she should include members of her own party that are being rather vocal in decrying this bill. Instead, she targets only those she doesn’t like, rather than those she disagrees with.
Today is Friday the 13th. I would gladly walk under a ladder, pet a black cat, break a mirror, and spill some salt.
But if I spilled salt or broke a mirror, I would have to clean it up.
If I brought another cat into the house, I think Bishop would probably kill me.
And it’s too rainy to be hanging holiday lights, so I don’t have a ladder handy.
Of course, failing to break any of the taboos, and repeatedly knocking on wood, was not sufficient to spare us a bit of bad luck today.
It seems the 2008 presidential election didn’t really end a year ago like we thought: FACT CHECK: Palin’s book goes rogue on some facts. Of course, this article, by the AP, features one of the best lines I’ve read in a news story in a while: “Sarah Palin’s new book reprises familiar claims from the 2008 presidential campaign that haven’t become any truer over time.”
Meanwhile, President Obama is on the campaign trail in Asia. He’s apparently working to spread the religion of consumerism, since if we could just get Asian countries to buy more of our products, our problems will be solved. No word yet on how to solve the resulting problems in Asia from rampant consumerism. Obama pushes for greater U.S. involvement in Asia: “This is where we engage in much of our commerce and buy many of our goods. And this is where we can export more of our own products and create jobs back home in the process.”
Still, all told, it wasn’t that bad of a Friday the 13th. The world hasn’t ended.
I had two fears about the immediate fallout from an Obama loss (if such a thing had actually come to pass).
The first was that Democrats would learn the wrong lesson from such a (now hypothetical) defeat. Obama ran the smoothest, most disciplined campaign I have ever seen. Had Obama lost, I didn’t want the Democrats to blame it on the way his campaign was managed. It seems to me that it’s a campaign Democrats should study for future campaigns. And had he lost, I was worried they wouldn’t do that.
I suspect I can put that fear to rest now.
The second fear, though, may not be as easily averted. My second fear, if Obama had lost, was that the Republicans wouldn’t engage in the necessary soul-searching that they so desperately need. George W. Bush and the neocons have moved the party so far away from its traditional conservative roots that it’s hardly recognizable. There has been no fiscal discipline. There has been none of the humility on the foreign stage that Bush advocated in his 2000 campaign. The government is more involved in our lives than ever (it seems). The Republicans need to find a more coherent (and I would hope a more traditionally conservative) message for their party.
Had McCain won, I feared that the Republicans might think that everything was fine with their party and not engage in that necessary self-evaluation. (I don’t mean that it’s just necessary for them. I think it’s necessary for the country to have a viable and reasonable alternative to the Democrats’ policies. Having a positive message to rival that of the Democrats is good for all of us.) With McCain’s defeat, I thought such a reevaluation an inevitability.
But now I worry that it may not happen. I’ve heard a few Republican pundits in the last 24 hours suggest that this country is still “center-right.” They somehow believe that this “center-right” country voted for “socialists” (as they would have us believe about Obama and Biden) because… why? I don’t know. They will cling to their incoherent party policies in the face of overwhelming evidence that the country rejects them.
I had hope that the Republicans who spoke up during the campaign to critique McCain’s run might get a fair hearing and help the Republicans come together with a positive, forward-looking plan. But instead, the Republicans seem content to blame McCain, or Palin, or the public, or the media.
I still hope that the Republicans, after they vent their ire, might still do some of that important soul-searching. Until they do, they deserve their time in the wilderness.
Perhaps, at least, they can serve as a reminder to the Democrats not to get too complacent. As we saw in 1994 and again in 2006, the public can get frustrated with hubris from either party.
Sarah Palin is claiming that her first amendment rights are being threatened by the media. Her comments (below) are from a radio interview broadcast this morning.
‘If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,’ Palin told host Chris Plante, ‘then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.’
Let me get this straight… She can say anything she want, drawing out the most bizarre innuendos (and she can), but if someone in the media calls it “negative,” that interferes with her right to speak? How, exactly?
I know that Palin’s discussion of the role of the Vice-President has made many wonder about her grasp of the Constitution, but this bizarre turn goes beyond that earlier confusion. Does she really not recognize that criticizing our elected officials is PRECISELY the thing the first amendment seeks to protect?
All the attacks in the media on her don’t prevent her from saying anything that enters her head (as the last couple of months amply prove). But her comment is chilling. In order to protect the right of government officials to speak, she would curtail the right of the free press?
She’s either more ignorant than previously suspected, or, if not ignorant, more totalitarian in her government style than anyone had feared.
The first amendment protects the rights of Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann alike. Liberals and Conservatives can go on the air and say all kinds of kooky stuff (with a few limits). We may not like it, but that’s what the first amendment is there to protect.
Palin doesn’t have to like it. But I hope to God that, if she’s elected, she’ll protect it. These are our basic rights she’s railing against. I hope McCain explains to her that that’s what this country stands for.
Over the last day or two, another reason to vote against John McCain has set in: the in-fighting.
Throughout this election, McCain has tried to bolster his support with the base by turning sharply to the Right. This has had the effect, culminating in the last week or so, in undermining McCain’s claims to bipartisanship as he mercilessly attacks not only Obama, but Democratic congressional leaders. This has made it difficult to believe that McCain will be able to work across the aisle if he is elected. That, in itself, is troubling and serves to undercut one of the main attractions of the McCain candidacy (namely, that McCain is a moderate).
But the nomination of Sarah Palin has finally caused the division in the Republican party, which had been simmering for some time now, to boil over. Palin and McCain surrogates seem to be spending almost as much time attacking one another (and the candidates) as their opponent. Whether it is complaints that Palin has been handled badly by McCain staffers, or whether it is complaints that Palin had to be handled because she was almost completely ignorant and thus a danger to the campaign… it doesn’t matter. The campaign is imploding.
This, by itself, does not guarantee an Obama victory. No one should take it as that. It does, though, indicate that the campaign has lost confidence in its own ability to win. And that’s the danger I worry about. What happens if this dysfunctional campaign actually wins? Now that the sniping and finger-pointing has shifted into high gear, how would they actually manage to govern if they were to win?
We have already suffered for eight years under a White House that functioned, but did so poorly. How would the country fare under a White House that cannot manage to function at all? That’s the danger of the blame game the Republicans are currently engaged in: It sends the message that these people cannot hang together long enough to run a campaign. There is no hope, then, of them doing so for four years of a Presidency.
McCain has already given up his bipartisan image. Now he has skewered his partisan image. Who would he work with if he were to win election? I think there is no one left for him to actually form alliances with.
Do you remember when Sarah Palin was criticizing Barack Obama for talking about people differently in different parts of the country? Does anyone remember when John McCain talked about his ability to reach across the aisle?
One has to wonder if Palin is willing to go to New York City and stand at Ground Zero and say that it isn’t part of the Pro-American America. One has to wonder if McCain can reach across the aisle to deal with the Anti-Americans that he seems determined to slur.
If you pay attention to the liberal media (like that noted bastion of liberalism Fox News during this segment on Fox News Sunday), then you probably already have heard a lot about Palin and others making claims about the difference between the real America and the fake America, the pro-American America and the anti-American America.
But I have to wonder if McCain can sleep at night. Is it okay to engage in the same sleazy tactics that he decried (and rightly so) during the 2000 campaign, just because he’s losing? Is it okay to drag out the Reverend Wright, as the McCain campaign is threatening, after promising not to do so? Is it okay to further divide this country, and cast aspersions on many parts of it, after castigating your opponent for doing that?
Does John McCain want to be president so badly that he’s willing to be president over only half the country? Because the way his running mate and his surrogates are talking, he is clearly willing to alienate half the country that supports his opponent.
There was a great bit during the first segment of The Daily Show tonight on this point. When it finally pops up on the web, I’ll add the link to this post.
UPDATE: Here’s the video from last night’s The Daily Show. A perfect take on the McCain campaign’s new divisiveness:
And here’s the quiz you can take to determine whether you are a REAL American:
I teach tonight. As a result, I’m likely to miss the debate. I’m planning on taping it, but I don’t know if I have the patience to watch the tape. So there probably won’t be any insightful commentary coming from yours truly.
But a friend pointed me to a video discussing Sarah Palin’s recent vitriolic attacks on Barack Obama. Keith Olbermann has, in my opinion, hit exactly the right points.
So here’s a little something to watch in preparation for tonight’s debate. Enjoy.
Sarah Palin told Katie Couric that she reads EVERY newspaper and magazine put in front of her. I wonder when that started?
The brouhaha over the weekend about Palin’s jab about Barack Obama’s ties to Bill Ayers highlights the problem. Here’s how she defended her discussing this connection:
“The comments are about an association that has been known but hasn’t been talked about.”*
But it took very little work to find plenty of news stories from February of 2008 where this story was beaten into the ground. The story HAS been discussed. And discussed. And discussed. She apparently wasn’t reading newspapers back in February. Indeed, typing “ayers obama” into a Google search (minus the quotes) gets you two hits in the top three, from discussions about this connection months ago. Palin is late to the game on this story.
She has, today, expanded her criticism today to include Jeremiah Wright, even though John McCain has said that this topic was off-limits for his campaign. Either McCain has decided to go back on his word, or he cannot rein in his running mate. Neither are good signs for him as a leader.
Further, in addition to the obvious mention of McCain’s role in the Keating Five scandal, Palin’s comments about Wright seem to open the door to pointing out McCain’s connections to both John Hagee and Jerry Falwell. This paints McCain with the same radical brush that Wright is supposed to paint Obama with. Further, the Keating Five scandal reminds voters that McCain has a long history being involved with economic crises and scandals.
All of which serves to undermine Palin’s main contention at her debate with Biden last week: we can’t keep looking to the past. We need to look to the future. But less than a week later, Palin is digging around in the past to assassinate Obama’s character.
All of which puts the lie to the McCain-Palin ticket’s claim that they represent change and a maverick attitude. Instead, they reveal themselves for what they are: agents of politics as usual. They want us to forget the past, unless it’s convenient for their attack ads. They want us to believe they can behave in a bipartisan way, but their bipartisanship looks like Bush’s: agree with me or go home. They are all for running on the issues, unless they are losing on the issues, then they want to make the campaign about celebrity and character. And we cannot ask them about their character, or it’s sexism and questioning the service of a POW.
This is all old hat. Long-time political observers won’t be surprised. Newcomers to politics will be turned off, convinced that their suspicions that the status quo will be maintained have been confirmed.
McCain said he would rather lose an election than lose a war. But, as I’ve said before, he seem completely content to lose his soul rather than lose an election. This recent round of attacks by Palin simply provide us even more evidence, both of her ignorance of the world, and his desperation to win an election.
I think scoring the debate will be very hard. Biden was expected to have a tight-rope to walk, and I think he found the secret to succeeding. Palin was expected to do poorly, and she probably out-performed her basement level expectations.
The tone of the debate was perhaps immediately set by the first audible comment from the debate. As Sarah Palin shook Joe Biden’s hand, she asked, “Can I call you ‘Joe?’” The two deferred to one another at times, pointing out areas of disagreement and appreciation for the positions.
These two seemed friendlier with one another than McCain and Obama. Indeed, Palin and Biden spent several minutes on the stage talking to one another after the debate. It seemed like a cordial exchange.
Palin managed to sound relatively informed, ready to answer questions. She did seem to get lost in her answers at times. Her attempts at one-liners always seemed to fall flat and sound terribly rehearsed. And there were a number of questions she didn’t answer, including what her Achilles’ heel was. She was also rather vague at many points. But I don’t think anyone will be surprised by this. She is thinner on knowledge and experience, and I don’t expect her failure will turn off any supporters. Her problem is that I don’t think she did anything to help her with independents that are unsure of her readiness. Given recent polls showing an increase in some independents’ uneasiness, she needed to reassure them. And I don’t think she did. She didn’t hurt herself. But she didn’t help herself, either, I think.
Biden avoided being long-winded. He covered a great deal of ground in a short period of time. Sometimes that was perhaps too dense. But he didn’t go on and on. And didn’t commit any major gaffes that I noticed. More importantly, though, he avoided ever sounding condescending toward Palin. He did that mostly be talking at the camera and talking about McCain. He never tried to instruct or dismiss her. He simply took issue with McCain’s positions and her characterization of them. And I think that was a winning strategy. Biden was debating a representative of McCain, not Palin herself. And that struck the right tone, I believe.
Who won? Palin certainly exceeded the incredibly low expectations that her recent interviews had set for her. But Biden avoided the many pit-falls he faced and came off sounding much more presidential, and seemed much more competent to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. I don’t know that either campaign sees any bump from this debate. And I suspect that is a win for Obama-Biden. The Vice-Presidential debates have, historically, had little effect on campaigns. McCain-Palin sought to change that with the energy and excitement surrounding Palin. Biden effectively neutralized the possibility that this debate would make the difference. And that strikes me as a good thing for Obama-Biden.
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